He Can Read. And He Knows that Finishing the Whole Book doesn't Prove Anything

I recognize that I haven't posted in quite a while.  Quite a long while.  I feel guilt, concerning my long absence.  Why guilt?  Why would weep, should Marius fall?  I mean, I don't know why.  But I do.  Because if you're going to go to the trouble of saying I HAVE A BLOG, you have, I think we all agree, some obligation to post at least every week.  Right?  And I have let down my side.  I have not lived up to my responsibilities.  I have slept while Rome burned.

So.  I will say only that the last few months have been dark, dark and grim, dark and grim and bleak, and that, in that darkness (which I write of now with a mock ironic tone, I acknowledge that, and what could be worse than mock-irony? NOthing, that's what could be worse than that--nothing) I have felt a desire to shrink into myself, to communicate with no one, to say nothing. to be a faux-Beckett, with nothing to say and no way to say it.

Or to put it less pretentiously, why inflict my sorrow on readers?  Or to put it more honestly--it's not that I'm hesitant to inflict my sorrow on CERTAIN strangers.  But then again, who might read this?

Because a blog, is, in its way, a public forum.  Drake, Usher, LeBron--any one of them, on any given day, might be reading my blog.  And do I want LeBron to know I'm feeling down?  To let him know I've lost a step?  That I can't hit the long J like I once did?  I do not.  Of course, I do not.  It will only make it harder to D him up, come November.  And that, I do not need.

So I pass over all that.

And I talk about trivialities.  We are all comfortable locating ourselves in trivialities.

I'm reading...oh who cares?  Not me.  Some stuff.

Eating more salads.

Listening a lot to a band called Ultraista.  Almost got my daily run to three miles.  Well, at least eclipsed 2.5 miles.  Rewatching the entire Sopranos series.  Without italics.

I'll be in Belgium, then France, soon.  Belgium is, I believe, the capital of Mongolia.  So, that should be interesting.  To see how they live, the Mongolians.

My wife is pretty wonderful.  My dog is pretty cute.  I've almost recalled my semi-ability to semi-speak French.  That's about it.

That's about it.

I think we can all agree the punctation on this text was deplorable.

I would also say that if anyone has to face down anyone quoting Julius about Eliot's anti-semitism, James Wood has pretty much the definitive last word on it.  In The Broken Estate.

And, if you're not watching The History of Film on TMC you're some kind of lame-ass sucker.  That's right.  I said it.  A lame-ass sucker.

ANCIANT out.